His Majesty's Dragon

Captain Will Laurence captures a dragon egg from a French ship. The Chinese dragon hatches and bonds with him; their relationship is like father and child. The dragon bred for emperors can speak and reason. He leaves the Navy for the understaffed Aerial Corps.

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His Majesty's Dragon combines two things I never considered as pairing: dragons, and the Napoleonic Wars. I was skeptical at first, but Novik managed to give me more than just a Horatio Hornblower story. And now I can't believe nobody put dragons into the 1800s before!

It's the first in a series (of 8, so far), and damned it all, I'm going to have to continue this series. Not only was the audiobook narrator fantastic, the characters intriguing, and the battle understandable *and* thrilling....I want to live in this world. It's the first time in a long time that I want to keep reading a series not because of the main character, or a cliffhanger plot, but because the world is so intriguing.

Believe me when I say, you don't need to enjoy battle fiction, or know anything about the Napoleonic Wars (although if you do, Novik's creative liberties are more clever). You don't even have to like the Regency era. Hell, you don't even have to like dragons! At its heart, it's a story of a dutiful man and his intelligent steed/pet/friend. It's got humor, action, and a lot of fresh dose into the ol' sword-and-sorcery genre of fantasy.

I recommend it for fans of fantasy, dragons, the Regency era, human/animal bonds, aerial anything, and historical fiction.

I'm rating the CD version, as, sadly, the Johnson County Library no longer owns the paper version. (Don't worry! You can get this as an eBook or call us and we can get it as an interlibrary loan.) What a fun and exhilarating read! This is the first book in a series or it can be easily enjoyed on its own. A historical fantasy - the Napoleonic Wars - that takes place in an alternate reality where dragons exist, the focus is on British Navy captain Will Laurence, who's ship runs across a boat intended for Napoleon that contains a dragon egg. In this reality, dragons are rare and bred for war, used as aircraft, with dozens of soldiers strapped on. The egg hatches, and it bonds to the first human it sees - Laurence. He must now train the dragon, an exceedingly rare Asian breed, to fight for crown and country against the French menace that threatens all Europe. This all sounds slightly silly, of course, but Novik is a skillful author who treats this material seriously, and the novel's historical details are similar to the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien. The aerial battles are the book's highlight, and are very cinematic and well-paced. This book is a lot of fun. (Sadly, the sequels don't hold up as well.)

I loved the book. I was fortunate to stumble upon it, and it is the first in a series. There are few things so irritating for me than starting in the middle of a series. The next book in is not on downloadable audiobook, so I am struggling here. I really get a lot done while I am listening to a book. Not so while I'm reading :( Perhaps one day soon?

Anne McCaffrey meets Susanna Clarke! While I read and enjoy quite a bit of fantasy fiction, I have not had much experience with the alternate history sub-genre, so I'm quite excited by the Temeraire series, and though I've not quite finished this first one, I had to comment about all I really like about this. For one thing, as with McCaffrey, I am touched deeply by the bond between the aviators and their dragons, and I love that these dragons speak! Though it's been decades since I first read McCaffrey, I think the communication was telepathic in her series. So for animal lovers, this love and shared loyalty is a deeply emotional pull in this book. Personally I thought Susanna Clarke over-wrote some of the military meets magic parts of Jonathan Strange, but Novik avoids this for the most part. And perhaps it's because I live, as we all do, in such an uncertain global climate,both politcally and ecologically, that the formalities of social exchange, and Novik's great ability to render this into believable dialogue, along with an almost comforting feeling from the structure of the 19th century English military make me feel "all's right with the world".
She manages to give us Europe as we expected it, with the twist of the dragon race having been there all along. Great fun! Highly recommended.